Die Herrlichkeit
by McMuffinDragon
Summary: The long process of German unification.


A horse plodded wearily through the forest, the silver haired man on its back scowled. His visible skin was scratched and cut, and from the stiffness of his posture, it was clear that there were considerable wounds under his heavy jacket. The Kingdom of Prussia made his way home from battle. Losing to that bastard France and his damn new boss left a bad taste in the man's mouth. As his horse approached an old bridge, Prussia pulled on the reins, leading the creature off the road to the bank.

He knelt by the water, dipped a pale hand into the cold October water and drank. There was a rustling over his shoulder; Prussia rose and spun to face the intruder, his sword half drawn. "Halt!" He barked, taking in a shocked young man emerging from the trees. His clothes were shabby and his haircut short and uneven, and his face was calm if a little curious. "Wer bist du?" The Kingdom asked, sheathing his sword cautiously.

"Ich bin der Rheinbund," he replied after a couple seconds of sizing up the man before him. Prussia raised his eyebrows to this. So this young boy was the new Confederation? How interesting. Perhaps Prussia could come home victorious after all...

"Hey," The blonde boy had been talking during Prussia's musings, "Did you hear me?"

"No," Prussia replied frankly, "What'd you say?"

"Who're you?" The boy huffed.

"You mean you don't know?" Prussia grinned, "I thought my reputation proceeded me." The young man wasn't impressed, "Boy, I'm the glorious Kingdom of Prussia, greatest warrior this world has ever known!" Prussia raised an arm in triumph, then whined back, clutching his shoulder.

"You look like you've lost miserably," The boy stated, crossing his arms and scowling.

"That's beside the point," Prussia growled. He grabbed the boy by the upper arm and pulled his sharply, "Come with me."

"I don't want to." Prussia's hold was quickly broken, and the boy still stood. Determined and head strong, Prussia could respect that.

"Why not?" The Kingdom asked, pouring on all his charm.

"I'm happy here with my Fürstprimas," He held his head high, "Plus I've been helping France, you'd be putting yourself in more trouble taking me away."

Prussia flared his nostrils, but he couldn't argue with that point. Instead, he smiled and chuckled, "Another time then." The Kingdom turned and lifted himself onto his horse with a grunt, then asked as an afterthought, "Oh, what's your name?"

"I'm the Confeder--"

"Nein, nein," The man cut him off with a wave of his hand, "Your _name_."

The boy thought for a few seconds, as though he was trying to remember, "Ludwig," He stated slowly.

"Ludwig," Prussia repeated, "Good." He turned his horse back to the road and head for home.

"Hey, wait," The young man called after him, "What's yours?"

"Oh, you'll find out," Prussia shouted without turning back to him before urging his horse into a slow run and vanishing around a turn.

---

Almost a decade later, Napoleon had fallen from power. Prussia knew it wouldn't have lasted. France wasn't meant to be in control anyway. The Congress of Vienna had just begun to sort out the whole business of where the country boundaries were. The Kingdom of Prussia decided he'd pop in to see if he'd be getting anything out of this. Sitting at the table, he could recognize England, Russia, France (who looked like he would rather jump out of the window than sit there watching everything he'd gained be taken away), and Austria of course. As Prussia made his way to sit beside his prince, Austria intervened.

"What are you doing here?" He hissed, trying not to draw attention from the discussion at hand over his shoulder.

"My prince is right over there," Prussia pointed with a smirk, "I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to sit with him." Austria rolled his eyes and let the Kingdom pass. Prussia ran and took an empty seat beside Prince Karl. Austria whispered something in his prince's ear, and the man nodded.

"Very well then," Prince Metternich put his hands flat on the long table they all sat at, "the next order of business is what to do with the Confederation of the Rhein." He gestured to a blonde young man sitting on the far end of the table. He had no foreign minister and looked very intimidated when everyone turned to look at him.

Prussia recognized him immediately. "I want 'im!" He shouted, jumping from his seat and throwing a hand in the air; everyone was a bit taken aback at this outburst.

Prince Metternich blinked twice before regaining his composure, "Actually, we were going to make the boy part of the Austrian Empire." Austria smiled confidently by his prince's elbow. Prussia scowled.

"What? Hell no, I'm not having any of that." He slammed a fist down on the table, "This boy deserves a better life than sitting around all day eating cakes and playing the grand piano."

"And what do you have to offer the boy?" Austria bristled, "Continuous war until the day he dies?"

"Stop calling him 'the boy!' He's got a name. It's Ludwig."

The young Confederation raised his head and looked to Prussia. "You don't really want to live with _him_, do you?" Austria asked in disgust. Ludwig glanced back and forth between his two options, then slowly nodded his head a little. Austria huffed and puffed over the kind of life he would lead under Prussia's wing, but nobody else could see a problem in this.

"Very well," Metternich declared, "The Rhein Confederation is now property of the Prussian and Austrian empires." Prussia frowned; this wasn't _exactly_ the way he wanted things, but maybe he could save Ludwig from a life of complete aristocratic snobbery.

---

Prussia trotted his horse up the drive to his home. Sitting on the steps was a well dressed, powdered, and clearly annoyed German Confederation. "Hallo," The Kingdom called as he stopped at the steps, "I wasn't excepting you so soon."

"You should have been," Ludwig barked before remembering his manners, "We'd agreed upon my arrival at quarter past two in the afternoon. It's now," He glanced at the position of the sun, "Four thirty. Where have you been?"

"Aw, relax," Prussia jumped from his horse, "More important, what the hell are you doing dressed like that?" He looked the boy up and down, "What'd that fop do to you? As long as you're here, I don't want to see any cravats or powdered wigs; go get changed."

---

Prussia swore loudly and slammed a fist on the table as the German Confederation worked to clean the wound bleeding profusely on the Kingdom's shoulder. He struggled to dress the wound as Prussia shoved him away each time.

"You need to let me see it," The teenager insisted, clutching the already used bandages in his fists, "We need to get you back out there with the troops."

"We can just send Roderich out there," Prussia growled as he seized the bottle sitting in front of him. He didn't believe at all that the aristocrat was capable of handling the situation, but he was better than no one.

"Austria can't go," Ludwig replied, trying to get past Prussia's hand swatting at him, "He's in worse shape than you."

"Then you go," Prussia snapped back, throwing the large hat lying crumpled on the table at the young Confederation. The blonde stood dumbly with the hat clutched to his chest. "You heard me, get your ass out there and start fighting for what's yours. Denmark wants your ass, not mine." Prussia took a long swig from his bottle. "I could care less what you do, but you better know that when I was your age, I was ruling over half those chumps out there. So if you ever want to amount to anything, you better get going."

"But what about--" Ludwig held out the long bandage.

"Gimme that," The Kingdom snatched the cloth, "Now go."

---  
Ludwig didn't come back; Denmark'd gotten him.

That didn't last long though; barely a decade later, Ludwig broke away, and Prussia was right there to help him to do.

Ironically, the final decision was made with another conference at Austria's house. Ludwig became the dual property of the two empires again.

That didn't last either. It was clear that splitting Ludwig between Austria and Prussia wasn't a smart choice, and so there was another war. The boy sided with Prussia; though it was clearly hard for him to admit it, he felt wrong fighting one of the men who'd raised him, but Prussia was firm in his judgment and brought the Confederation to war. Austria was quickly out of the picture, just to Prussia's liking.

---

"Prussia, I don't understand," Ludwig said as he set his book down and looked to the Kingdom lounging in the sunshine.

"Don't understand what, mein Brüderlein?" Prussia hummed, opening one eye.

"Why I need to stay here when I'm perfectly capable of living on my own?" The Kingdom's face fell, and he stared up at the sky with creased brows. He looked over to the boy--well, he wasn't really a boy. He was taller, thicker than the little Rheinbund he'd met sixty years ago.

Prussia sighed and scowled. Ludwig had a point. "We'll talk to Bismark." He said lowly.

---

Prussia held his head high as his army trotted on. Ludwig stared down at the road before him; he was pale and blank.

"What's wrong, Luddy?" Prussia asked, reaching over and jostling his shoulder slightly. The Confederation looked up suddenly.

"Nothing," He croaked in response. That was a blatant lie though.

"You said you wanted this," The Kingdom said quietly so none of the men would hear him, "You have to be willing to put yourself on the line and fight."

"N-No, I don't think I do. Can't I separate without another war?" Prussia reigned his horse to a halt directly across Ludwig's path and parried every attempt the boy made to get around him.

"You heard what Bismark said," Prussia said sternly as he began to circle his horse around Ludwig's, "We're not gonna do this with speeches and votes," The Kingdom stopped beside his protégé, "We'll do it with blood and iron." The man's eyes flashed a deep scarlet, and he spurred his horse on with a shout. Ludwig took a deep breath before following suit.

---

Ludwig rode home with his head held high. Behind him sat two younger women, both flaxen haired and delicate. The smaller one was sobbing softly and wiped her eyes with the end of her sister's sleeve. The more composed one tried to bargain for freedom with this broad blonde man who'd grabbed them from their home.

"S'il vous plaît monsieur," She pleaded, wrapping an arm around her sister, "S'il vous plaît laissez-nous aller."

Ludwig turned his head just enough to see her out of the corner of his eye and replied, "Ich verstehe dich nicht." He glanced to Prussia riding a little ways off, and they shared a proud smile.

"Alsace," The girl shook her sister slightly, "Dis quelque chose."

"Es würde nicht hilfen," The smaller girl hiccuped.

---

The following January, Prussia stood by as his little Brüderlein took his independence on paper. The blonde man stood tall as Otto von Bismark signed the treaty. The Kingdom stared up at the high ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors in the French palace and bit his lip. Farve and Bismark shook hands, and Prussia applauded, then promptly looked out the window as everyone else who was watching turned to him.

Out on the steps of the palace, Prussia caught up to his brother. They stood a couple feet apart, neither was sure of how to address the other now that they were equals. Eventually, Prussia stuck out his hand, and Germany shook it firmly.

"Thank you," The new Empire said in a low voice, "For everything." His breath rose in thick clouds.

"It was nothing," The old Kingdom replied hoarsely with a sad smile, "I'm proud of you, Lud--Germany." They both chuckled. "Well, I suppose I should go, um, goodbye." Germany nodded slowly.

Prussia turned to leave, but Germany called after him, "Prussia, wait," The elder turned back, "What's your name?" He asked, "I never learned it."

The Kingdom grinned and let out a single chuckle, "It's Gilbert." The Empire nodded with a fulfilled smile and turned to follow the calls of his new Chancellor. Gilbert watched him go, watched how his shoulders moved as he walked and the trail his footprints left in the snow. He coughed once, twice. His time of power was drawing to a close, but Germany's was only beginning.

Notes/Mini-timeline:  
-July 1806-The Confederation of the Rhein (Der Rheinbund in German) established; the Holy Roman Empire dissolved only a little while before this. In my eyes, this is the first 'Germany.'  
-October 1806-Prussia was defeated in the Napoleonic Wars in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt  
-Fürstprimas-Prince Primate, the title given to the leader of the Confederation  
-1848-1867-The First Schleswig War, the Danish-Prussian war _and_ the Austro-Prussian war  
-1870-The Franco-Prussian War, the two girls are Alsace (the people there spoke German) and Lorraine (where they now speak French with a whole mix of dialects, I believe they spoke straight French at this time)  
-Sorry for the fail!French btw for anyone who actually speaks it.  
-1871-The German Empire declared with the Treaty of Versailles.


End file.
